


Nothin' Lasts Forever

by angelheadedhipster



Category: November Rain - Guns N' Roses (Music Video)
Genre: F/M, Kinda, M/M, Songfic, guns and drugs and the rock n roll but off screen, hauntedsexy, lyric-typical drama, outside pov, thanks aliza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster
Summary: He tries to think about how they all got there - the girl, Slash, the wedding, Axl, everything that came after -  but it’s like his memories are filtered through smoke. All he can conjure up are hazy flashes: sunglasses in dim bars, leather jackets, hands holding ever-present cigarettes.
Relationships: Axl Rose/Slash | Saul Hudson, Axl Rose/Stephanie Seymour
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Nothin' Lasts Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joanne_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/gifts).



> This prompt was so fun! Man did i learn a lot about guns and roses while writing this. This is mostly based on the video, with a little bit of RPF thrown in, cuz it was hard not to. There’s a touch of inspiration from the [short story](https://www.recantodasletras.com.br/contos/3325290) that ‘inspired’ the video, which I read back in 2009 because that’s how long I’ve been obsessed with this video. Hope this is what you were looking for, dear yuletide!  
> Thanks to the late night writing chat and to my usual Yin for beta work

It’s raining, still, cold and dismal, drops hitting Duff’s shoulders as he stares at a wilting bouquet of roses. His hair is probably going flat. 

It’s hard to keep an open heart, he thinks, when even friends seem out to harm you. If she ever was a friend. Maybe that’s not the word. 

He tries to think about how they all got there - the girl, Slash, the wedding, Axl, everything that came after - but it’s like his memories are filtered through smoke. All he can conjure up are hazy flashes: sunglasses in dim bars, leather jackets, hands holding ever-present cigarettes. 

He remembers the church - both churches. The one that the wedding was in, huge and ornate, full of everyone Axl had ever met or thought he had met, everyone dressed up and expectant. And the tiny one in the desert, where it all started. Maybe. 

There were some things about the wedding that had been incredibly predictable - the procession, how short Stephanie’s skirt was (trust Axl’s wife to come up with a MULLET wedding dress), the lack of speeches. The fact that “you may now kiss the bride” wasn’t a romantic peck but full-on sucking face. Slash “forgetting” the rings. 

Duff had stuck the rings on his pinky, thinking that Slash would ask for them before they all took their places, but nope. Or rather, hoping that Slash would ask for them, suspecting that Slash would probably forget. Did Slash forget his only task as best man on purpose? Who knows.

Duff had made a face and stuck his glove out, Slash’s “oops!” face comically overdone. Duff had felt a pang as Slash picked the rings off his pinky - whose side was he on in this, anyway? Maybe he should have let Slash forget them. 

Also predictable - that Slash had walked out. The rings, the vows, the officialness of it all - he’d practically shoved the rings at the priest and booked it. Down the aisle, his boots clomping on the church stones; he’d have drawn everyone’s attention if there wasn’t a wedding kiss going on. The little bro hug they did before Slash walked out didn’t fool anyone, least of all Duff. Duff could guess what he was thinking about, could practically see his fingers moving, finding the strings and wringing notes out of an imaginary guitar. Slash always seemed to have a guitar on him, slung low on his hips. It was like a trick of the light. And who had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth in a CHURCH? During a wedding? 

Admittedly, it did look very cool. 

Duff can remember cutting the cake - the high table in the front, everyone looking at them. Stephanie looked KILLER, because of course she did. He understood why Axl liked her; there was something reassuring about how consistently sexy she was. Axl didn’t look like himself - he was groomed, tamed, edges smoothed out. Axl was missing the wildness in his eyes, the quirk of his lips like he was putting something over on everyone. Duff wasn’t used to Axl with this much skin covered up, he realized. 

It was still a fun party - the band was cool, lots of horns, and they played old people music, nothing you’d hear on the radio at all. It was fun to watch little kids dance. Everyone still had their cigarettes, and he can’t remember what the air had looked like before the rain. 

Even when it rained it was fun, everyone diving under the tables, laughing as they knocked bottles over and stepped on each other’s fancy shoes. 

The rain had felt like an omen even then, but Duff tried not to think that way. He hung around with people who wore skull rings and crosses everywhere; he’d trained himself out of looking for portents.

It was only a year later that she died. Less. 

The funeral is impeccable, black and stylish. Suits that match shoes that match hearses and match the coffin. Duff keeps hearing a guitar in his head, wailing. That’s all he can think of now, and the fact that it’s raining, again.

Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain. 

Duff never actually heard the story of how Slash and Axl had found that little church in the desert last summer - no, two summers ago now. He’d gone out there once, but it was such a production to get there. And like, it looked cool, but it was so small, and there wasn’t really much to do? 

But Slash and Axl had loved it. They’d gone out there a few times, in Axl’s truck, before any of them had things like sleek black cars. That’s where Axl and Slash written the song, the two of them next to each other on the piano in that little church. Duff hadn’t been there, but he could picture it - the two of them next to each other on that huge piano, one cigarette burning in the ashtray and another one that they passed back and forth. Slash’s curls would be creeping into Axl’s eyes, and he’d wave them off like he always did. 

It became the whole band’s song eventually, sure - that's how it got on the radio, that’s where the money came from. Duff had made up a bass part when they got back, Izzy had figured out how to complement the piano line. But the song would always be Axl and Slash’s, just like that little church was theirs. 

Slash had been so excited, chattering away about the solo he’d come up with - well, chattering for him, which was still mostly a monotone, eyes hidden behind his hair. “There was this wide open sky, and a little, like, white picket fence,” he’d said, his eyes shining. “It’s the best solo I’ve ever written,” he said, and he was looking at Axl. 

Axl had smiled back, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. He was humming something, under his breath, and didn’t really respond to anything anyone said. 

Duff hunches his shoulders against the rain, now. They’ ve been through this such a long, long time. Just trying to kill the pain. 

Duff had talked with Axl about it, later, way later. Before the wedding, he was pretty sure, but definitely after Stephanie had come into the picture. 

Axl had told Duff about that day, about writing that song and feeling like they were sharing brains, sharing hands and space, understanding each other so completely. Alone in the church, the desert all theirs. 

That moment Duff can picture clearly. No haze in his memory, no smoke, just the ice clinking in Axl’s glass, Axl biting his lip and looking across the cramped table at Duff. Duff didn’t say anything- what was there to say, at that point? By then, he’d been with Stephanie for months. Axl had made his choice, and he knew more than anyone what it meant. 

“Sometimes I need some time, on my own,” Axl had said. 

Duff remembers thinking that Axl had never looked more like Bill Bailey, a kid from small town Indiana, than he did at that moment. 

There were a lot fewer people at the funeral than there had been at the wedding. Duff doesn’t know any of the people on the other side - Stephanie’s friends, her family. He didn’t really know her at all, he realizes. All Duff’s memories are hazed in cigarette smoke and whiskey, watching Axl as he kissed her, and watching Slash out of the corner of his eye.

There had been a moment at the wedding, when Axl and Stephanie got into the car after the ceremony to drive to the reception. Duff didn’t think anyone else was looking at Stephanie as she arranged her dress, the veils and the lace, but she’d looked...sad. Really sad. Tragic, almost like she knew something awful was about to happen. 

And then there’d been everything else - money, fighting, drugs, a gun. The song Axl and Slash had written became “their” song, Axl and Stephanie’s, and Duff started to dread hearing it on the radio. Stephanie had friends who weren’t very nice, and Axl had never really learned how to deal with people like that. Slash usually dealt with the people like that, but Slash wasn’t around much anymore. 

And then Duff got a call, in the middle of the night after a show, and it was all over. 

Duff knew that Slash blamed her, that Slash had always she was fake, a bitch, that she was after Axl for all the wrong reasons. And that might have been true, maybe, but Axl was after her for the wrong reasons, too. Or for one very specific reason, a reason with long curly hair who played guitar and wanted nothing more than to write songs in the desert with his best friend.

You’re not the only one, Duff thinks, watching through the rain as Slash slings his arm around Axl under their umbrella. Axl is crying, or maybe its the cold rain streaming down his face, through his stringy hair. Duff can’t quite make out what Slash says in Axl’s ear, but he thought it might be, “ Don't you think that you need somebody?”

Everybody needs somebody , Duff thinks. Axl doesn’t say anything, but a line from the song floats through Duff’s mind. “ I know that you can love me, when there's no one left to blame .”

The rain’s stopping, he think. Nothing lasts forever. 

**Author's Note:**

> November Rain is actually my second favorite Guns N Roses song - Rocket Queen is my fave. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNjjL23wjOM) the best version of that, for your enjoyment. I told you I learned a lot.


End file.
